Cardiff University-Clifford Thames Ltd. Environmental Rating for Vehicles report (ERV)
Click here to download a PDF of the report
Cardiff University's renowned Centre for Automotive Industry Research (CAIR) and the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability & Society (BRASS) have combined with automotive industry consultant Clifford Thames Ltd. to produce an Environmental Rating for Vehicles model that measures the real impact on the environment of every new car currently on sale in the UK.
The purpose of the model (which will be continuously updated) is to provide the consumer with a completely independent rating of any vehicle using not just CO2 exhaust emissions but also looking at toxic emissions (CO, Particulates, HC+NOx) and a vehicle's 'footprint'. The footprint includes factors such as a vehicle's weight and dimensions to act as a proxy for pollution, energy and material usage in a vehicle?s manufacture, usage and disposal. All data used in the ERV rating system is publicly available, which provides for transparency and differentiates this rating system from others.
The ERV rating system enables consumers to be better informed about the vehicle of their choice and also creates a more comparable basis on which to assess different cars that may use diesel or some form of bio-fuel instead of petrol.
CAIR/BRASS and Clifford Thames believe that a common standard for 'through life' vehicle emissions should be adopted by the EU along the lines of the EuroNCAP crash/safety test 'star' ranking system which has both informed consumers and provided objective criteria against which improvements in occupant protection systems could be rated. The authors believe that a similar environmental rating system (based on ERV) would prove beneficial to avoid the confusing messages currently being released by manufacturers to the car buying public.
Access to the interactive ERV model can be obtained by opening the company's home page www.clifford-thames.com and clicking on the ERV logo. Readers will then be able to use the interactive ERV tool that allows a comparison between vehicles. Readers will also have access to an explanatory paper that goes into the background of the ERV rating system
Contacts:
CAIR/BRASS: 029 2087 5702
Dr. Paul Nieuwenhuis (nieuwenhuis@cardiff.ac.uk)
Dr. Peter Wells (wellspe@cardiff.ac.uk)
Clifford Thames: 01245 236600
David Riemenschneider (davidr@clifford-thames.com)
Richard Barber (rbarber@clifford-thames.com)
Geoff Fletcher (gfletcher@clifford-thames.com)
College Hill: 0207 457 2020
Nicholas Potter (nick.potter@collegehill.com)
Brass
Our Approach
The ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society exists to understand and promote the vital issues of sustainability, accountability and social responsibility, through research into key business relationships. The Centre pursues a research agenda based on academic excellence, relevance to main user groups and accessibility in dissemination. In this way it will seek to contribute:
- Locally, through an active involvement in promoting greater levels of sustainability, accountability and social responsibility within regions, with an initial focus on the Welsh economy;
- Nationally, by acting as a national centre of excellence in the development of new theoretical perspectives and the pursuit of nationally relevant research; and
- Globally, by research aiming to develop sustainability, accountability and social responsibility within industries whose scope is global, and whose structure includes both Trans-national Corporations and small-to-medium sized enterprises.
Key Aims
Through its research work, partnerships with businesses and their stakeholders, and communications activities, BRASS aims to significantly contribute to:
- The development and dissemination of new knowledge and understanding about the significant changes occurring in the relationships among firms and their stakeholders, including their customers and suppliers, investors, communities, employees, government and a range of non-governmental organisations (NGOs);
- The creation of a better understanding of the social responsibility of business including corporate accountability, governance, and business ethics based on an integrative, systems perspective;
- The development and promotion of new tools, models and approaches to business strategy and decision making which will help practitioners, policy makers and researchers to better understand and manage the sustainability impacts and implications of business activity;
- The fostering of a more holistic and inter-disciplinary approach to the understanding to the interaction between businesses and their social and physical environment;
- The development of international research links to enable comparative international research, and the transfer of knowledge between companies, regions and countries;
- The development of the UK's research capacity in relation to business, sustainability and social responsibility.
www.brass.cf.ac.uk
CAIR
Introduction
The Centre for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University was launched in 1991 and has since built a global reputation in the field of economic and strategic aspects of the world automotive sector. 2005 saw the retirement of Professor D G Rhys from full time employment in Cardiff University and also as director of CAIR. This prompted the appointment of Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis and Dr Peter Wells as joint directors of the Centre. CAIR currently has four permanent full time members, half a dozen associate members, and two PhD students.
Much of CAIR's research these days involves issues of sustainable mobility. This is now taken very seriously by many in the automotive industry and takes up a significant amount of vehicle producers? R&D budgets. This research is largely carried out under the BRASS banner, using BRASS resources. This has become such a key element of BRASS research that the two CAIR directors are 50% funded by the ESRC through BRASS.
CAIR has carried out many funded projects, including among its past and present clients the European Commission, DG Environment, ACEA, OECD, UNIDO, DTI/BERR, National Assembly for Wales and several vehicle producers and suppliers.
In 2006, CAIR was integrated into the Logistics and Operations Management section of Cardiff Business School.
Dr Paul Nieuwenhuis AffIMI
Co-Director, Centre for Automotive Industry Research, Cardiff University
Paul Nieuwenhuis was born in the Netherlands and studied in Australia, Belgium, Spain and Scotland, where he obtained two degrees from Edinburgh University. A lifelong interest in cars and car making allowed him to get a job with the Motor Industry Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The unit was later privatised, this moved him into the consultancy world, carrying out projects for most of the world's car and truck makers, while he also became a special advisor on state aid to the automotive industry for the European Commission (DGIV). Since 1990, he has been with the prestigious Centre for Automotive Industry Research (CAIR) at Cardiff University. Here he also developed his special interest in the problems of making personal mobility compatible with the need for sustainability.
Dr Nieuwenhuis has co-authored The Green Car Guide (1992), Motor Vehicles in the Environment (1997), The Automotive Industry and the Environment (2003) and the influential The Death of Motoring; Car Making and Automobility in the 21st Century (1997), among others. He also contributed to the Beaulieu Encyclopaedia of the Automobile (2000). Dr Nieuwenhuis is a member of the Society of Automotive Historians, a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, an Affiliate of the Institute of the Motor Industry and a member of the UK DTI-EPSRC Foresight Vehicle Steering Committee. In 2001 he became a founder member of the ESRC-funded Centre for Business Responsibility, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University.
Dr Peter Wells
Co-Director, Centre for Automotive Industry Research, Cardiff University
Peter Wells has a degree in Geography from Leeds University, and an MSc in Town Planning from Cardiff University, while his PhD (also from Cardiff University) was on the subject of the socio-economic consequences of military R&D in the UK. He joined the Centre for Automotive Industry Research at its inception in 1990 and has since specialised on economic, strategic and environmental aspects of the world automotive industry. He is particularly interested in small scale, decentralised economic organisation as a means to achieve sustainable consumption and production. In 2007 he was awarded a Readership at Cardiff Business School?s Logistics and Operations Management section.
Recent Publications
Nieuwenhuis, P.; Vergragt, Ph. and Wells, P. (eds) (2006) The business of sustainable mobility, London: Greenleaf Publishing.
Wells, P. (2006) Is democracy sustainable? Paper presented at the SDR Conference, Hong Kong, April 3rd-6th.
Wells, P. (2006) Re-writing the ecological metaphor, Progress in Industrial Ecology ? An International Journal, 3(1/2), 114-128.
Wells, P. and Darby, L. (2006) Re-writing the ecological metaphor, part 2: the example of diversity, Progress in Industrial Ecology ? An International Journal, 3(1/2), 129-147.
Wells, P. (2006) Off-road car, on-road menace, London: Greenpeace.
Wells, P. and Seitz, M. (2006) Challenging the implementation of corporate sustainability: the case of automotive engine remanufacturing, Business Process Management Journal, 12(6), 822-836.
Wells, P. and Nieuwenhuis, P. (2006) Business models for relocalisation to deliver sustainability, Greener Management International: Special Issue: Technological change and regulation in the car industry, 47, 89-98.
Benyon, M. and Wells, P. (2006) The Lean Improving of the Preference Ranking of Motor Vehicles based on their Chemical Emissions: A PROMETHEE Uncertainty Analysis, OMEGA, In Press.
Bristow, G. and Wells, P. (2006) Innovation in regional development: from spatial competition to liveable regions, submitted to special issue of Progress in Industrial Ecology, In Press.
Wells, P. and Orsato, R. (2005) Product, process and structure: redesigning the industrial ecology of the automobile, The Journal of Industrial Ecology, 9(3), 1-16.
Wells, P. (2006) The motorisation of emerging markets: will the human cost be too high? Automotive Emerging Markets, 100, 29-30
Wells, P. (2006) Biofuels or biofools? Automotive Environment Analyst, 133, 32-33.
Wells, P. (2006) Can Land Rover save the 4x4? Automotive Environment Analyst, 135, 38-40.
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